InGenesis, Inc.

B-416564.3 Nov 26, 2019 Jump To FULL REPORT VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights InGenesis, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, protests the award of a contract by the Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Occupational Health (FOH) agency, under personal services request for proposals (RFP) No. 18-233-SOL-00075 to STG International, Inc. (STGi), of Alexandria, Virginia, for medical and occupational health professionals. InGenesis contends that the agency improperly assigned its proposal significant weaknesses and weaknesses under the technical factor, unreasonably evaluated its proposal and that of the awardee under the past performance factor, and made an unreasonable best-value determination. We deny the protest. View Decision DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release.       Decision Matter of:  InGenesis, Inc. File:  B-416564.3 Date:  November 26, 2019 Edward J. Tolchin, Esq., and Bryan R. King, Esq., Offit Kurman, P.A., for the protester. Craig A. Holman, Esq., Dana E. Koffman, Esq., Michael E. Samuels, Esq., and Nathaniel E. Castellano, Esq., for STG International, Inc., the intervenor. Anthony E. Marrone, Esq., Department of Health and Human Services, for the agency. Katherine I. Riback, Esq., and Amy B. Pereira, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest challenging the agency’s evaluation of proposals is denied where the record shows that the agency’s evaluation was reasonable, consistent with the evaluation criteria, and extensively documented qualitative differences between the proposals. DECISION   InGenesis, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, protests the award of a contract by the Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Occupational Health (FOH) agency, under personal services request for proposals (RFP) No. 18-233-SOL-00075 to STG International, Inc. (STGi), of Alexandria, Virginia, for medical and occupational health professionals.  InGenesis contends that the agency improperly assigned its proposal significant weaknesses and weaknesses under the technical factor, unreasonably evaluated its proposal and that of the awardee under the past performance factor, and made an unreasonable best-value determination. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The agency issued the solicitation on February 12, 2018, under the commercial item procedures of Federal Acquisition Regulation part 12.  Id. at 1.[1]  FOH provides integrated occupational health and safety (OHS) services throughout the federal government.  Agency Report (AR), Tab 3.27, RFP at 3.  The RFP contemplated the award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract on a best-value tradeoff basis.  Id. at 2.  The solicitation provides for a 5‑year ordering period during which the agency can issue time-and-material (labor-hour) task orders.  Id. at 101.  Under this solicitation the contractor would provide medical staffing, occupational professionals and ancillary staff as personal service contractors to support FOH and facilitate delivery of the FOH services specified in the performance work statement.  Id. at 2, 4. The proposals were to be evaluated using a two-phased approach.  Id. at 112.  Under phase 1, proposals were evaluated on a pass/fail basis regarding the Joint Commission (TJC) accreditation/certification.  Id. at 113-114.  Proposals that received a pass rating in phase 1 would then be evaluated in phase 2 under the following factors:  technical evaluation, past performance and price.  Id. at 114‑115.  The technical evaluation factor was comprised of the following three subfactors, in descending order of importance:  staffing and scheduling approach, TJC and FOH policy approach, and transition plan.  Id. at 115.  According to the RFP, technical was more importance than past performance, and, when combined, technical and past performance were more important than price.[2]  Id. at 112. Regarding past performance, the solicitation provided that the agency would evaluate each offeror’s past performance references for recency, relevancy, and quality to assess the agency’s overall confidence in the offeror’s ability to perform.  Id. at 116.  The total evaluated price would be evaluated for reasonableness.  Id.